Anastasia Dimitropoulos
Case Western Reserve University
Anastasia Dimitropoulos, Ph.D. is an assistant professor of psychological sciences in the College of Arts and Sciences at Case Western Reserve University. Dr. Dimitropoulos’ research examines the cognitive, behavioral, and emotional characteristics of individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Her interests include examining the ways in which different genetic syndromes predispose individuals to show specific profiles or trajectories and how behavioral phenotypes inform gene-brain-behavior relationships. Much of her work has focused specifically on the phenotypic profile of Prader-Willi syndrome (PWS), including food and nonfood repetitive and ritualistic behavior, mechanisms of hyperphagia (excessive overeating), and autistic symptomatology. Her two current general areas of interest are (1) characterizing and understanding social cognitive deficits present in autism among individuals with other neurodevelopmental disorders and (2) examining and identifying the neural mechanisms underlying overeating in PWS and in the general population. In terms of social cognitive deficits, areas of specific research interest include (a) identifying common characteristics between children and adults with ASD and people with chromosome 15 maternal uniparental disomy subtype of PWS using gold standard assessments for ASD and (b) using fMRI to examine face discrimination in ASD and other developmental disabilities. Dr. Dimitropoulos directs the Neurodevelopmental Research Lab that is focused on directly assessing clinical populations and examining neurobiological functioning using fMRI.